US blacklists Pakistan-based insurgent leader

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is blacklisting the new leader of a Pakistan-based group that has carried out terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The State Department announced Tuesday that it had added Bahawal Khan’s name to its list of specially designated global terrorists. That step freezes any assets he may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from any transactions with him.

The department said that Khan runs the Commander Nazir Group, which has run training camps, dispatched suicide bombers, provided safe haven for al-Qaida fighters and conducted cross-border operations in Afghanistan since 2006. The group is named after Maulvi Nazir, a Taliban member whose faction agreed to a cease-fire with the Pakistan military in 2009 but then broke it in 2011. Nazir was killed in a U.S. drone strike in January.